How to Put an AirTag in Lost Mode

[MacRumors]

Apple's AirTags are small, coin-shaped devices that can be attached to items like keys and wallets to allow these accessories to be tracked using Bluetooth right alongside Apple devices in the Find My app.

AirTags can be tracked using the Items tab in Find My, and just like your Apple devices, if one should become lost, you can put it in Lost Mode to locate it. If an AirTag is nearby, it will connect to an Apple device over Bluetooth to relay its location, and there's even a Precision Finding feature on the iPhone 11 and 12 that uses the U1 chip for finding items that are misplaced close by.

An AirTag that's out of range can still be tracked using the Find My app, but it won't rely on the Bluetooth signals from your own device. Instead, the ‌‌Find My‌‌ Network takes advantage of nearly a billion Apple devices out in the world to help you locate your AirTag.

However, if an AirTag isn't nearby and there are no Apple devices in the area in which it's located, ‌Find My‌ will only be able to tell you where it was last seen on the map. In such cases, you can place the AirTag in Lost Mode. That way, if someone with an iPhone or Android device that has NFC comes across the item, they can help return it to you. Here's how it works.

How to Mark an AirTag as Lost

1. Launch the Find My app on your iPhone.
2. Tap Items.
3. Tap the AirTag you want to mark as lost.
4. Swipe down on the card and under "Lost Mode," tap Enable.
   
5. Tap Continue.
6. Enter your phone number in the input field, then tap Next.
   
7. Toggle the switch next to Notify When Found, and optionally customize the lost message that is shown when someone finds the item. Note that you can only customize the message and activate Notify When Found if the AirTag is out of range of your device.
   
8. Tap Activate.

Now that the AirTag is marked as lost, anyone who finds it can bring it close to an NFC-enabled iPhone or Android phone and they will see a notification linking them to a website URL that contains your lost message and phone number. You may also be able to see the location relayed through someone else's device thanks to the Find My network.

Article Link: How to Put an AirTag in Lost Mode

 

[DrRadon]

I would love to put it in my bike frame and be able to mark it as stolen rather than showing up on the iPhone of the thief’s as lost.

 

[Westside guy]

Sounds very much like the same “lost” protocol that’s used by the other existing Tile-type trackers.

 

[Wildkraut]

Sounds very much like the same “lost” protocol that’s used by the other existing Tile-type trackers.

Well, BLE proximity is nothing that Apple invented

 

[topdrawer]

I would love to put it in my bike frame and be able to mark it as stolen rather than showing up on the iPhone of the thief’s as lost.

my thoughts exactly. i thought this would be great for finding my stolen stuff if it didn't alert the robber that it is getting tracked.

 

[JudgeJudas]

If you are too stupid to lose a product you are utilizing to prevent you from losing its parent product, you deserve neither.

 

[Apple_Robert]

If you are too stupid to lose a product you are utilizing to prevent you from losing its parent product, you deserve neither.

A person puts an AirTag in a piece of luggage and the Airline loses said luggage. The owner isn't stupid for attempting to take reasonable care to prevent loss from happening.

You shouldn't make such declarative statements without considering what you are saying.

 

[JudgeJudas]

A person puts an AirTag in a piece of luggage and the Airline loses said luggage. The owner isn't stupid for attempting to take reasonable care to prevent loss from happening.

You shouldn't make such declarative statements without considering what you are saying.

If the airline... let's say, Southwest... loses the luggage... let's say, the latest Titelist titanium clubs... the person with the lost clubs has no control over said luggage, and the race is on for Southwest to track those golf clubs down, AirTagged or not.

How are AirTags solving a problem from 2020? Duh derrr

 

[Apple_Robert]

If the airline... let's say, Southwest... loses the luggage... let's say, the latest Titelist titanium clubs... the person with the lost clubs has no control over said luggage, and the race is on for Southwest to track those golf clubs down, AirTagged or not.

How are AirTags solving a problem from 2020? Duh derrr

I pointed out that your all encompassing declarative statement was a poor statement. And 2020 has nothing to do with your previous statement much less this one.

 

[NightFox]

What I'm still not clear about is if I lose something and mark it as lost, if Person X walks near it with his iPhone I know I should get an alert on my phone, but does Person X also get notified he's found a lost item? If it was something valuable, I would want to know it's approximate location so I could go and try to receive it myself, and not flag it up to Person X.

That's how I hope/thought it would work, but what's the purpose of the feature where you can provide your contact details to a finder? Is that just if you drop your keys on the floor and Person Y finds them in the traditional sense, they can scan the AirTag to find your contacts details?

 

[Sasparilla]

So you can still see the location from other iThingy's without putting it in Lost Mode, but you can put it in Lost Mode so you can get direct help (them contacting you) from other folks finding it.

Seems pretty straightforward. I'm glad Apple took their time with this before release and worked all this stuff out. Looking forward to mine (got one) to play with and see how well it works.

What I'm still not clear about is if I lose something and mark it as lost, if Person X walks near it with his iPhone I know I should get an alert on my phone, but does Person X also get notified he's found a lost item? If it was something valuable, I would want to know it's approximate location so I could go and try to receive it myself, and not flag it up to Person X...

It does work like you were expecting, from what I understand. Without putting an item in lost mode, if its just out some place (say in a McDonald's and you're at home) your phone's Find My will show its location as picked up by other iPhone's etc. that happen by there. The Verge demoed this by doing a hide and seek experiment with an AirTag (starts about 4 minutes in) in a city and it did work.

But if you're can't recover it (get to it perhaps or whatever) you can put it in Lost Mode, so that people nearby will get an alert with a message to contact you via a website page Apple provides. It's actually pretty slick to have that option.

 

[Azeroth1]

All I can think of is the device that Bruce Wayne builds at the end of The Dark Knight.

 

[gene731]

If the airline... let's say, Southwest... loses the luggage... let's say, the latest Titelist titanium clubs... the person with the lost clubs has no control over said luggage, and the race is on for Southwest to track those golf clubs down, AirTagged or not.

How are AirTags solving a problem from 2020? Duh derrr

What happens if it’s employee that steals the clubs or someone else got the wrong golf club carrier by mistake? Then the onus is off of southwest and back to the owner to try to locate his/her clubs.

 

[HappySponge]

Can i disable my phone from being used to locate someones airtags?

 

[cmaier]

Well, BLE proximity is nothing that Apple invented

The BLE spec says nothing about lost mode.

 

[Wildkraut]

The BLE spec says nothing about lost mode.

heh lost mode is simply an on top function, based on signal strength and/or no signal. Not downplaying the development that went into, but nothing fancy.

Orientation (Establishing wireless links via orientation) is even mentioned in the Patents, made by Nokia and based on Wibree which became BLE.

US8260324B2 - Establishing wireless links via orientation - Google Patents

A system for establishing a wireless link from a wireless communication device (WCD) to at least one target device. The process of both identifying the target device and establishing a link to this device may incorporate the orientation and/or movement of the WCD into the procedure in lieu of...

patents.google.com

 

[cmaier]

heh lost mode is simply an on top function, based on signal strength and/or no signal. Not downplaying the development that went into, but nothing fancy.

Orientation (Establishing wireless links via orientation) is even mentioned in the Patents, made by Nokia and based on Wibree which became BLE.

US8260324B2 - Establishing wireless links via orientation - Google Patents

A system for establishing a wireless link from a wireless communication device (WCD) to at least one target device. The process of both identifying the target device and establishing a link to this device may incorporate the orientation and/or movement of the WCD into the procedure in lieu of...

patents.google.com

Ok, but orientation also has nothing to do with lost mode.

 

[knoxy]

I would love to put it in my bike frame and be able to mark it as stolen rather than showing up on the iPhone of the thief’s as lost.

There is a Swiss company who's been doing this for a few years now http://www.trakyv.com but rather than the massive device network Apple has they were using the local post and supermarket delivery trucks to get the GPS location data as they pass by your bicycle.